Thoughts on Life, Love, Politics, Hypocrisy and Coming Out in Mid-Life

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Why Society is Responsible for the Sins of Religion

I often complain of the undeserved deference given to religion in America. The complaint also applies to other nations as well, but of the modern industrial nations America alone has the strongest fixation of hanging onto discredited religious beliefs and institutions. True, most of us - especially in older generations - were brainwashed growing up in pews across the country, but at some point one needs to grow up and open their eyes. Most of us grow up being fed with the Santa Claus myth, but at some point we acknowledge that the story line is untrue and that adults have misled us. The same needs to happen with religion in general and denominations that preach division and contempt for others in particular and demand exalted respect for themselves. A column in the New York Times from last week looks at the horrible consequences of giving undue respect to religious and clergy. While focused on the Roman Catholic Church, the piece could just as easily be about the Southern Baptist Convention which likewise has a huge problem of sexual abuse by clergy. Here are column highlights:

It’s
fashionable among some conservatives to rail that there’s insufficient
respect for religion in America and that religious people are
marginalized, even vilified.

That’s
bunk. In more places and instances than not, they get special
accommodation and the benefit of the doubt.Because they talk of God,
they’re assumed to be good. There’s a reluctance to besmirch them, an
unwillingness to cross them.

The new movie “Spotlight,” based on real events, illuminates this brilliantly.

“Spotlight”
— which opens in New York, Los Angeles and Boston on Friday and
nationwide later this month — chronicles the painstaking manner in which
editors and writers at The Boston Globe documented a pattern of child
sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests and the concealment of these
crimes by Catholic leaders.

[I]t isn’t about journalism. Or, for that matter, Catholicism. It’s about the damage done when we genuflect too readily before
society’s temples, be they religious or governmental. It’s about the
danger of faith that’s truly blind.

It takes place in 2001 and 2002, and that time frame itself is a
remarkable reflection of how steadfastly most Americans resist any
intrusion into religious groups, any indictment of religious officials.

“Spotlight” is admirably blunt on this point, suggesting that the Globe staff — which, in the end, did the definitive reporting on church leaders’ complicity in the abuse — long ignored an epidemic right before their eyes.

Why?
For some of the same reasons that others did. Many journalists,
parents, police officers and lawyers didn’t want to think ill of men of
the cloth, or they weren’t eager to get on the bad side of the church,
with its fearsome authority and supposed pipeline to God.

“Spotlight”
lays out the many ways in which deference to religion protected abusers
and their abettors. At one point in the movie, a man who was molested
as a boy tells a Globe reporter about a visit his mother got from the
bishop, who was asking her not to press charges.

“She put out freakin’ cookies,” the man says. When
the cookies finally went away, many Catholic leaders insisted that the
church was being persecuted, and the crimes of priests exaggerated, by
spiteful secularists.

But
if anything, the church had been coddled, benefiting from the American
way of giving religion a free pass and excusing religious institutions
not just from taxes but from rules that apply to other organizations.

A 2006 series in The Times, “In God’s Name,” noted
that since 1989, “more than 200 special arrangements, protections or
exemptions for religious groups or their adherents were tucked into
congressional legislation, covering topics ranging from pensions to
immigration to land use.”

To
cloak sexual abuse and shield abusive priests, Catholic leaders and
their lawyers routinely leaned on the church’s privileged status,
invoking freedom of religion, the separation of church and state, and
the secrecy of the confessional. They thus delayed a reckoning.

“If
it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one,”
says a character in “Spotlight.” Indeed it does: a village too cowed,
and a village too credulous.

We all need to grow up, open our eyes and demand tat the special privileges and exemptions enjoyed by churches and religious organizations (and their often charlatan leaders) end. If they cannot operate and survive under the dame rules and tax policies as other institutions, then the deserve to wither and die.

Translate This Page

Contact Me to Order Title Work

LGBT Legal Services

About Me

Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

Disclaimer on Opinions and Content

This Blog contains content that may be innapropriate for readers under the legal age of 18. IF YOU ARE UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE, PLEASE LEAVE NOW. Thank you

This is an opinion and commentary blog and the opinions and contents of this Blog - including opinions expressed concerning opponents of LGBT equality - are the opinions only of the individual blogger and should not be attributed to any other individuals or to any organization of which the blogger is a past or current member.

Followers

Michael-in-Norfolk disclaims any and all responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, completeness, legality, reliability, operability, or availability of information or material displayed on this site and does not claim credit for any images or articles featured on this site, unless otherwise noted. All visual content is copyrighted to it's respectful owners. Information on this site may contain errors or inaccuracies, and Michael-in-Norfolk does not make warranty as to the correctness or reliability of the site's content. If you own rights to any of the images or articles, and do not wish them to appear on this site, please contact Michael-in-Norfolk via e-mail and they will be promptly removed. Michael-in-Norfolk contains links to other Internet sites. These links are provided solely as a convenience and are not endorsements of any products or services in such sites, and no information or content in such site has been endorsed or approved by this blog.